This is Part 2 of San Marino snacks from La Serenissima. I was really hamstrung when I was ordering from them because of my hazelnut allergy – hazelnuts are a massive staple of Sammarinese desserts, including as the key ingredient of San Marino’s most famous specialty, Torta Tre Monti. Sadly, it’s a no go for me, so instead, I made do and ordered pretty much everything that I wasn’t allergic to!

Il Torrone Mandorle – The name just means almond nougat, and that’s what you get – a very soft, sticky nougat filled with almonds. Very tasty and sweet. I quite liked it, but between the super soft nougat and the hard almonds, it’s almost impossible to cut into nice slices!

Moscatelli biscuits – Crumbly little cookies with raisins and pine nuts, flavoured with locally-produced San Marino muscat wine. They’re bite sized and not too sweet; I really dig the flavour. I’m not normally a fan of raisins in cookies (it’s always oatmeal raisin when you think it’s going to be chocolate chip), but these work because they lean into the raisin/white wine flavour. I think these may be a specialty of San Marino – La Serenissima is the only source I can find that makes them.

Montegiardino white chocolate – Continuing their series of chocolates named after San Marino’s districts (or castles, as they’re sometimes translated to). Montegiardino is the southeast corner of the country, and was one of the last territories added to San Marino, in 1463. The chocolate is straightforward, just a plain, good quality white chocolate.

Chiesanuova dark chocolate with cinnamon – Chiesanuova is the southwest region, looking up at the back of Mount Titano. The text inisde the lid translates to a legend of a buried gold bell under the site of a now-vanished monastery. The chocolate is a bar of their dark chocolate (I tried it plain in Part 1) with powdered cinnamon added. The cinnamon is pretty mild and only really comes out in the aftertaste, but that does keep it from being overpowering and makes the chocolate almost slightly savoury.